Post #740177 by Dustycajun on Thu, Mar 26, 2015 1:02 PM

Name:Kon Tiki Room
Type:restaurant
Street:3251 Main Street
City:Kansas City
State:MO
Zip:
country:USA
Phone:
Status:defunct

Description:

OK, here is a new one for our Tiki ohana in Kansas City. The Kon Tiki Room.

I had always been curious about the illustration on this Kon Tiki menu that was on Mimi's website. The drinks and vessels were certainly Tiki, but I could not understand the graphic on the cover.

Here is an article from 1963 from the grand opening of the La Louisiane restaurant and the Kon Tiki Room.

From the ad, it looks like they had Tikis.

The menu illustration is a rendering of the Kon Tiki Room building entrance. And what a great sign on the front of the building directing you to it!

A few ads that used the same rendering.

In the early 1970s it shifted to Cantonese cuisine.

And then became House of Chun with the Kon Tiki Room intact.

Obviously named after the chef who was lured from the Polynesian Room at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago to start the restaurant.

The Kon Tiki Room became secondary.

Then disappeared altogether.

I have read that it became a gay bar named the Kon Tiki Room later in the 1980s.

DC